Bad Journalism

Believe it or not I'm packing for another trip this morning -- a quick one to Washington DC for work with the HRC Faith & Religion Council. And while I'm waiting for the laundry to dry so I can finish packing and head off to LAX I came across this piece by RNS's (Religion News Service) Daniel Burke, challenging the "bad journalism" of a couple of the post-General Convention op-eds we've seen in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

You can read Daniel's piece here. And here's my comment:

Thanks for this, Daniel. And as a further note, having "kept a steady eye on the Episcopal Church" for a lot LONGER than six years, I want to note that these two op-eds ... as blatantly biased and egregiously erroneous as they were ... were unpresentative of the media response to the actions of the Episcopal Church at its 77th General Convention. Instead of headlines and handwringing about what would happen IF we moved to fully include all the baptized in all the sacraments, we got reporting on the fact that we DID move forward to more fully include all the baptized in all the sacraments.

"Paradigm shift" may be an overused term, but in this case I think it's fair to say it is accurate. Now we as a church get to put our evangelism where our resolutions have been and tell the Good News of a church grounded in scripture, tradition and reason and growing into God's future -- drawing the circle wider rather than circling the wagons. And what I know from my experience at All Saints Church in Pasadena -- which is about to break ground on a building project to make room for the mission and ministry that has outgrown our facilities -- is that there are plenty of people out there who think they know enough about being Christians NOT to want to be one ... and when we invite them in we change their minds.

And now ... Hi Ho, Hi Ho ... it's off to LAX I go. Prayers invited for good travel karma!